Recent Posts

Most Used Categories

Month: March 2006

You are Here :
Current Events, Perspective

1 Pyromaniac + 2 Sycophants = Joke

I really think this is a worst case scenario.

If the church fires in Alabama had been the work of a hate group the country would very readily condemn them and the group —“ and have a fairly good understanding of their motives.

In this case people will just shake their heads and say —“ what went wrong. Hey, they’re from good families, just like mine.

Well, I’d say a lot went wrong and it most likely started in their families. Let’s consider these points:

  • Did they have an upbringing that had faith in God as a central tenant?
  • Were they ever taught anything about judgment, accountability, personal and family honor?
  • Did they ever work for anything, or was everything handed to them?
  • Did they have good role models or good ‘ole boy role models?

It is no joke. Our country, and indeed the world, has to come to grips with the fact that solid families that have an adherence to basic values like God, family, citizenship, education, cultural history, etc. produce good solid citizens for the future. Those ‘families’ that swim in the anti-cultural morass, that go along to get along, and that fail to identify and criticize wrong, will just produce more jokesters.

Unfortunately for all of us, most will not see the reality of the problem, and those future jokesters will wreak havoc on our communities.

Media

Offensive Scripture?

Take a look at the following letter to the editor that appeared in today’s Times-Union of Albany, NY

Ash Wednesday quote not meant to be insulting

Thank you for the March 1 story on Ash Wednesday and the bishop’s presence at LaSalle Institute, Troy.

The New Testament quote you used is read on Ash Wednesday, but Jewish readers might misinterpret it.

“When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, who love to stand and pray in the synagogues …” refers to hypocrites who do religious things for other people to see them and not for the greater honor and glory of God. It does not refer to those who pray in the synagogue for, after all, Jesus himself began his ministry in a synagogue.

In the words of Bishop Howard Hubbard at that LaSalle Mass: “The three practices designed for deepening our relationship with God are practiced by all of the faith traditions, including Judaism and Islam…”

REV. JAMES KANE
Pastor
St. Helen’s Parish
Niskayuna

The writer is interreligious affairs director for the Albany Diocese

Now to me the letter does provide a great opportunity for catechesis. However, I think it goes a little too far assuming offense and in equating Christianity with other faiths. Jesus said —I am the way.— I wonder why so many, including clergy, refuse to make that point.

Christianity can be offensive at times —“ that’s why it and we will never ‘fit in’. We must call people out of the ‘let’s all fit in attitude’ and return to our mission of calling the world to repentance and conversion.

What do you think?

Saints and Martyrs

March 7 – St. Thomas Aquinas (Św. Tomasz z Akwinu)

Doktorze anielski św. Tomaszu, książe teologów i wzorze filozofów, któryś nauczał mądrości bez błędu a udzielał jej bez zazdrości, pros za nami samej Mądrości, Syna Bożego, abyśmy poznali rozumem to, czego nauczałeś, a naśladowaniem wypełniali to, co czyniłeś i tak stali się uczestnikami twej nauki i cnoty, Amen.

Perspective

Let the church take charge of neighborhoods

This op-ed piece from the Buffalo News is music to my ears.

By the way, Ms. Goldman mentions Transfiguration Church throughout. I’ve posted on this issue in one of my earliest blog entries: Who stole the kiszka?

Let the church take charge of neighborhoods
By Mary Kunz Goldman

No one said it was going to be easy. No one said it was going to be cheap.

That’s why the “Journey of Faith and Grace,” as the Diocese of Buffalo dubs its current downsizing, is such a shame.

Remember the last wave of church closings, in 1993? Want to see the destruction? Visit Transfiguration Church. Drive out Sycamore Street from downtown, past Fillmore Avenue, and it’s on your right.

Walk around. Take a good look.

Graffiti covers the side of the huge, shuttered church, just as it covers the boarded-up houses nearby. You can see through the steeple. When the light hits right, you’ll catch the glimmer of shattered stained glass. So much for the Polish immigrants who paid money they couldn’t afford to create this once-magnificent place. This is how we honor them.

When did the church become all about the bottom line?

Mother Teresa didn’t downsize. Money wasn’t an object to Father Baker. Centuries ago, the Jesuit missionary Father Marquette would have found it cheaper to stay in France. But he came to America.

The city churches the diocese is looking to close are our chance to be Mother Teresa. A beautiful, active church radiates hope and stability. Closed and crumbling, it spreads defeat.

“I don’t want to hear that “the church is people, not buildings,’ line ever again,” says Buffalo Common Council President David Franczyk. “I will never accept that lazy phrase.”

Franczyk, who attends Corpus Christi, by the Broadway Market, resents the 1993 closings.

“I’ve been to Rome,” he says. “They have churches from 400 A.D. And we can’t keep up a church that’s as old as an old person? These churches should be our legacy for the next thousand years.

“I know they have fewer priests, fewer parishioners, but there has to be a better way to deal with these problems.”

There is a way. And guess what? It’s not to declare defeat.

The church is supposed to fill the emptiest vacuum of the human spirit, to cast its light through darkness. Is there a better place to do this than in desperate neighborhoods? Can the church argue that God’s work there is done and it’s time to focus more on the suburbs?

Before there were governments to ensure society’s needs, there was religion. When government stumbles, religion should step in. Our city will eventually fix our schools, but, meanwhile, we can’t afford to lose another child to illiteracy. We can’t lose more kids to gangs.

How’s this for a battle plan:

Each church should get out a map and claim a territory of blocks around it. The church will declare that neighborhood no longer “open.” It is now under the influence of the church.

Every house should be “encouraged” by the church to look maintained. Gardens should be grown. Garbage on the ground should not be tolerated. Classes could focus on reading and other life skills.

I’d help. A lot of people would, if only church leaders would start behaving like leaders, energizing us instead of preaching doom and destruction.

Block by block, the church should influence every home. This strategy works. John Gotti’s neighborhood loved him because he promoted a sense of order.

If a villain like Gotti could inspire appreciation from a neighborhood, surely a church can. Neighbors should come to see the church not just as a friend, but as a force they will not be permitted to ignore.

Buffalo should show other dioceses how it’s done. The world’s eyes would be on us. Then we could celebrate our successful transfiguration of the city by reclaiming Transfiguration Church. Say we’re sorry. Fix it up and open it again.

Will it be cheap? No. Easy? No.

But remember, no one ever said it would be.

Homilies

First Sunday of Lent

I’m sure all of you have seen movies where a beautiful couple, meant to be together, break-up.

It is unusually heart breaking. We know they should be together. We know that they are destined for each other. The one left behind stands there as the other closes the door behind them, or goes down into the subway, or drives away.

The one left behind —“ almost always the guilty party —“ has a moment to think. Is there still a chance? Can I get him or her back?

If it’s a good movie the person left behind finally acts. They run after the other. They chase them down and in an instant confess their sorrow and undying love.

God said to Noah and to his sons with him:
—See, I am now establishing my covenant with you
and your descendants after you
and with every living creature that was with you:
all the birds, and the various tame and wild animals
that were with you and came out of the ark.

The action of God is a historical reality. The action of God is the historical reality of love. God is the consummate lover.

Throughout the Old Testament, God kept chasing after His people. They were the people who kept running away, the people who took on false lovers and other gods. Unlike the movies where the innocent one leaves, here the guilty parties kept running away. And here comes God, the true lover chasing after the ones who have run away; the ones who are guilty and sinful.

If you were here for Ash Wednesday you heard the prophet Joel telling us what God asks:

Come back to me with all your heart,
Turn to the Lord your God again,
for he is all tenderness and compassion,
slow to anger, rich in graciousness,
and ready to relent.

God made agreements —“ covenants with His people. He gave an eternal promise to Noah. Throughout the Old Testament God’s covenants and actions prepared His people for what was to come. He made covenants with Abraham, Moses, and David. He acted through the judges and prophets. He sang poetry to His people and chastised them when they were unfaithful.

Finally, in the fullness of time, God spoke His Word to us in the incarnation of His Son, Jesus, the Christ. Jesus who came to earth to reveal to us, in an instant, the fullness of God’s love for His people. Jesus, one with the Father and Holy Spirit revealed the fullness of God’s love for us.

St. Peter tells us how this was done:

Beloved:
Christ suffered for sins once,
the righteous for the sake of the unrighteous,
that he might lead you to God.
Put to death in the flesh,
he was brought to life in the Spirit.

Jesus, crucified, who died, was buried and is risen, has shown us the Father. Jesus even told us: —Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.—

So it is today. We have seen Him. We receive Him each week. We see the action of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in His Holy Church. God is still chasing after us.

The miracle is that God created us. An even greater miracle is the fact that no matter how many times we run away, fall, or chase other gods, God calls us back. He comes after us. He sent His only Son into the world to connect us forever.

The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert,
and he remained in the desert for forty days,
tempted by Satan.
He was among wild beasts,
and the angels ministered to him.

So go into the desert of this Lent. Go back to Christ, you are meant to be together forever.

Remember why He came. Remember what he said:

Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God:
—This is the time of fulfillment.
The kingdom of God is at hand.
Repent, and believe in the gospel.—

Current Events, Saints and Martyrs

Ei, Kaziuk!

To all my Lithuanian friends and colleagues I wish you a very happy Kaziuko mugÄ— (St. Casimir’s Festival)

Malda į Ł¡v. Kazimierą

Ł ventasis Kazimierai, didis dangaus KaralienÄ—s, Ł venčiausiosios Marijos garbintojau, daug kartŁ³ parodęs ypatingą globą savo TÄ—vynei, teikis, meldŁ¾iame, ją globoti ir visuose reikaluose jai padÄ—ti. IŁ¡ganytojo nuopelnŁ³ ir Ł venčiausiosios Motinos Marijos uŁ¾tarimo remiamas, iŁ¡melski iŁ¡ VieŁ¡paties malonę, kad mŁ«sŁ³ Ł¡irdyse suliepsnotŁ³ gyvas tikÄ—jimas ir tarpusavio meilÄ—, kad mŁ«sŁ³ jaunimas suprastŁ³ skaistaus ir doro gyvenimo groŁ¾Ä¯ ir kad VieŁ¡paties tÄ—viŁ¡koji Apvaizda vestŁ³ visą tautą savo įstatymŁ³ meilÄ—s keliu į taiką ir gerovę. Amen. Ł ventasis Kazimierai, melski uŁ¾ mus!

Saints and Martyrs

March 4 – St. Casimir (Św. Kaźmierz)

St Casimir

Zbawicielu nasz! któryś św. Kaźmierza pośród dostatków niezmazanym od grzechu zachował, i wśród majestatu królewskiego pokorą i pokutą jaśnieć mu dozwolił, daj nam prosimy Cię, abyśmy niewinność jego anielską naśladowali, N. P. Marję, jako on pobożnie wychwalali, a gardząc ziemska chwała do niebieskiej Ojczyzny wzdychali. Amen.

All Right Reserved © 2005 - 2023